Yea its a pain, one of the reasons why I'm not switching from my (now discontinued) unity sprite tool plugin. The ability to define custom colldiers is very simple. What tools are you using again?
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Yea its a pain, one of the reasons why I'm not switching from my (now discontinued) unity sprite tool plugin. The ability to define custom colldiers is very simple. What tools are you using again?
A defunct one I downloaded long ago called, hilariously for SEO reasons, "Hitbox Editor" by someone on itch who was called "Like a Thousand Bears" who I can't find anymore and who appears to have disappeared off the internet.
A different one is available on itch that runs in Godot which means hilariously I can't run it off this remote laptop I'm working through, and also doesn't appear to actually respect the origin point of the sprite (even though it lets you set it) and I really cannot be bothered monkeying with it to get it to work.
A different one is available on itch that runs in Godot which means hilariously I can't run it off this remote laptop I'm working through, and also doesn't appear to actually respect the origin point of the sprite (even though it lets you set it) and I really cannot be bothered monkeying with it to get it to work.
I bought Aseprite yesterday and spent all day doing pixel art and ok I know what you guys are talking about now. That is a GOOD program. Going to have to do a lot of studies though becuse I'm not used to painting pixels at all. I have a question though about creating game assets because when I look at some of the free assets I found online, the way they are built don't make sense to me.
Top down ground tiles. Let's say I have a few materials used for one area. Two different colors of grass, one lighter dirt material and one darker. I'm not supposed to create tiles for each combination of "overlap" (not sure what to call it, but for example when grass meets dirt), right? It makes more sense to me that I create assets that has opacity on the tiles that can overlap, as in leaving empty pixels. I hope it makes sense XD Because the free assets I've looked at all contains tiles for each specific overlap and unless there is a very specific look to an overlap I don't see why it would be done that way unless there is something I'm missing here?
Top down ground tiles. Let's say I have a few materials used for one area. Two different colors of grass, one lighter dirt material and one darker. I'm not supposed to create tiles for each combination of "overlap" (not sure what to call it, but for example when grass meets dirt), right? It makes more sense to me that I create assets that has opacity on the tiles that can overlap, as in leaving empty pixels. I hope it makes sense XD Because the free assets I've looked at all contains tiles for each specific overlap and unless there is a very specific look to an overlap I don't see why it would be done that way unless there is something I'm missing here?
You can do it either way - but having overlapping tiles will require twice the data for the map and twice as many tiles to draw (you'll basically have to have two layers of map that move together).
You could also have some sort of meta-tile system that lets you create more complex layered tiles to place into your map... not sure if there are existing tools that support that tho tbh. Given that map data is going to be pretty small, and that drawing tiles is relatively cheap, might just be easier to use two layers :)
You could also have some sort of meta-tile system that lets you create more complex layered tiles to place into your map... not sure if there are existing tools that support that tho tbh. Given that map data is going to be pretty small, and that drawing tiles is relatively cheap, might just be easier to use two layers :)
if you mean godot, i'm using it! works very nicely for pixel art games
originally it was set up that way for resource reasons (two tilemaps means twice as much data + processing). most modern editors will let you do multiple maps (one bottom layer with your "bottom" ground texture and one upper layer with your overlapping texture), but depending on how many terrain types it can get complicated. if you have three terrain types you might need three layers, too (say, sand < ground < grass), and so on and so forth.
it can easily get pretty complex to try to manage, but that depends on specifically what you want your maps to look like
Godot is pretty great & doesn't get enough love for 2D, IMO.
3D support will be even better when 4.0 is released with the Vulkan renderer, although that probably doesn't matter as much for a pixel art game. Definitely worth playing around with for 2D - the community is great, welcoming and helpful.
You can do either, it just depends what suits for your specific case. The opaque method works in some cases, but you might find that when you start laying the tiles down on top of each other it just doesn't sit quite right. The contrast might be too high between the two, or it may need some kind of additional detailing in order to have it "smoothly blend" In those instances you may need to make a bespoke tile to signal the overlap between the two.
Been playing around with Asesprite. I'm still learning but I'm quite impressed with it. I've decided to switch from low-poly to a pixel-based art style and I'm pretty happy with it so far.
Still need to add a ton of detail but I was able to come up with this in not too much time. Animating is still slow for me, but I'll get better I'm sure. Apparently I can't try DAIN since I don't have an Nvidia GPU :/
Still need to add a ton of detail but I was able to come up with this in not too much time. Animating is still slow for me, but I'll get better I'm sure. Apparently I can't try DAIN since I don't have an Nvidia GPU :/
Don't worry, everything takes time to learn, you're off to a good start!
Since your character there is a ball, why not try doing some ball-bouncing studies to get you used to movement?
Here's a video tutorial!
Thanks, will definitely do more movement based stuff. Going for a monster-collecting aspect so just trying to get MVP (minimal viable product) for animations at the moment until I can build out the roster more. But I'll give that video a watch and I'll look at the one posted earlier about using Asesprite. This one's supposed to be a bubble, so might play around with some squishing/shimmering animations.
Following my post in this thread a few weeks ago wondering if should hire a programmer to work on my brilliant game idea (which after just a few weeks I now realize is a foolish thing to think given I can't even prototype it), I've been taking a Udemy course on Unity/C# and trying to teach myself (thanks Weltall and HandsomeCharles for the encouragement!).
I can't say I've retained a lot yet with regards to C# - I definitely can look at code now without feeling totally intimidated, and I understand some of what's going on, but I definitely can't code from scratch or form any original thoughts/statements yet. But I have managed to copy/paste code well enough and make a basic platformer, Pong-style game, etc. and I'm getting the hang of tilemaps (though I find rule tiles confusing as hell), animations and the camera (and Cinemachine) in Unity.
It's funny because I did a tutorial on camera movement that I guess was from a few years ago, so it was all done in the code, and then learned about Cinemachine after and was like "Oh, I guess I didn't have to code any of that." :p
Brief/novice question:
A lot of the tutorials I've been looking at focus on player movement as it pertains to Unity's physics system and using colliders. The game I'm hoping to make would use grid-based movement (I think?), almost Sokoban style, with a retro 2D look and feel. As such, I'm wondering if physics/colliders, simple as they are, might not be the right approach/be necessary.
Are there any good resources or tips
that might pertain to movement and interaction in Unity NOT using Unity's physics/collision systems?
I can't say I've retained a lot yet with regards to C# - I definitely can look at code now without feeling totally intimidated, and I understand some of what's going on, but I definitely can't code from scratch or form any original thoughts/statements yet. But I have managed to copy/paste code well enough and make a basic platformer, Pong-style game, etc. and I'm getting the hang of tilemaps (though I find rule tiles confusing as hell), animations and the camera (and Cinemachine) in Unity.
It's funny because I did a tutorial on camera movement that I guess was from a few years ago, so it was all done in the code, and then learned about Cinemachine after and was like "Oh, I guess I didn't have to code any of that." :p
Brief/novice question:
A lot of the tutorials I've been looking at focus on player movement as it pertains to Unity's physics system and using colliders. The game I'm hoping to make would use grid-based movement (I think?), almost Sokoban style, with a retro 2D look and feel. As such, I'm wondering if physics/colliders, simple as they are, might not be the right approach/be necessary.
Are there any good resources or tips
aside from general C# courses/tutorials, which I plan on taking as soon as I finish this Udemy course, and which might answer my question, I'm just eager to know!
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Indeed I would not use colliders or physics on a grid-based game. There's probably tutorials out there (google "unity grid based movement" or something like that) but the gist should be something like:
- Store the "logical" position of each element, like the player, as two ints (x and y). The easiest way to do this is to use some sort of integer vector class; I use one such myself (Vector2i) for the grid-based overworld map movement and such. You will use this for all of your game's logic: e.g. if the player is at position (3, 7) and wants to move up, you'll check if there's anything on position (3, 8).
- Aside from this, each element will have a "visual representation", i.e. an Unity gameObject with a SpriteRenderer that's what the player actually sees. Whenever an element moves, you will have to update the position of its visual representation, typically by multiplying by a factor and adding the visual position of the bottom left corner.
I know this is a bit generic so a tutorial would probably be best if you're not very familiar with code, but do let us know if there's any specific bit you get stuck on.
Edit: Fixed quoting wrong poster. :)
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I've released my game on Early Access today, a couple of days sooner than originally announced. Receiving my first positive review has been a great and very fulfilling feeling, and it makes all the hard work put into your project feel worthwhile. Thank you to everyone helping me get through my prerelease anxieties, most of all Weltall Zero. You guys are a great community!
Congrats on the launch! I picked it up and am looking forward to diving in (once I finish Xenoblade).
'Watching' this thread, officially. Started a Unity tutorial and Maya - going to finally start my journey. I have a game idea in-mind. I am a software developer, so I have some headway, learning Unity will be the biggest task. Wish me luck. Some awesome, awesome stuff in here already.
Congratulations! Hope many more good reviews are on their way :D
You've finally decided to enter the fray! Welcome, and good luck!
Big grats! Must feel awesome. Steam link? :)
Weltall Zero quoted me on your post, see his answer above :)
JackAstral I've been watching the launch of your game, and I am really happy it seems to be resonating with people! I hope you're happy with how things are going!
Thank you so much, guys! I feel very humbled. After a break of a short number of days, and maybe receiving feedback or bug reports in the meantime, I shall resume development.
FLCL Here's the link to the Store Page. Thank you for your interest!
Thank you so much, guys! I feel very humbled. After a break of a short number of days, and maybe receiving feedback or bug reports in the meantime, I shall resume development.
FLCL Here's the link to the Store Page. Thank you for your interest!
Haven't posted in here in a long while.
My newest project while I'm finishing up my old project.
My newest project while I'm finishing up my old project.
Looks great. Waaaaay better than ours hahaha.
We just started doing imports to unity. Really gotta improve our rig change workflow and IK work. Haven't even written the cell shader that we have in blender over to unity. Soooo much work to do.
Hi everyone! I recently starting creating easy-to-follow tutorials. I'm really excited to share the latest tutorial in a series covering Unity's animation system! This video thoroughly breaks down Unity's Animator component and explains how to use the component's five properties: controller, avatar, root motion, update mode and culling mode. By the end of the video, we have our character animated and you should understand how/why it all works!
I would love for some of the devs on Era to check it out if interested and I'm always looking for feedback if you have any! Hope the video helps some of you out! Happy learning!!
I would love for some of the devs on Era to check it out if interested and I'm always looking for feedback if you have any! Hope the video helps some of you out! Happy learning!!
Watched, liked and subscribed, really informative video, very clear and it moves at a perfect pace. I already knew most of the stuff in it, but thanks to it I learned what root motion is, which I had written off as "something for 3D", but I'm now curious if it also applies to 2D animations. If it does, I've doing "attacks that move your character's position" in a needlessly overcomplicated way :D.
After about a month of on-and-off work, I have finally finished my first pixel art character. As someone who has nothing to do with art, I am quite proud of the final results:
It took me two sittings for the first version (on the left) and almost two weeks of going back and forth between different body/head designs and colors for the final one (on the right).
The original was basic as fuck, no personality, especially for a main character. Making a character memorable under such limitations without making them too cartoony with body proportions or extreme features was VERY hard for me. Eventually, I found out that imagining the character in a higher resolution and then bringing it down to 64x64 gave me a good direction. Adding one characteristic visual feature is also important (in this case I went with the fluffy hair).
Even though I am very happy with the end product, I am not sure if I can keep up this quality for the rest of the assets in the game. It will take me ages to get something done. Animating this will be a pain in the ass.
Right now the only flaw I see is the outline, since I still don't know how to do it properly. Removing the black outline made a huge improvement visually, but the sprite will probably not stand out and will blend too much in the background.
I am open to suggestions for improvements, since I want to get the main character right.
It took me two sittings for the first version (on the left) and almost two weeks of going back and forth between different body/head designs and colors for the final one (on the right).
The original was basic as fuck, no personality, especially for a main character. Making a character memorable under such limitations without making them too cartoony with body proportions or extreme features was VERY hard for me. Eventually, I found out that imagining the character in a higher resolution and then bringing it down to 64x64 gave me a good direction. Adding one characteristic visual feature is also important (in this case I went with the fluffy hair).
Even though I am very happy with the end product, I am not sure if I can keep up this quality for the rest of the assets in the game. It will take me ages to get something done. Animating this will be a pain in the ass.
Right now the only flaw I see is the outline, since I still don't know how to do it properly. Removing the black outline made a huge improvement visually, but the sprite will probably not stand out and will blend too much in the background.
I am open to suggestions for improvements, since I want to get the main character right.
After about a month of on-and-off work, I have finally finished my first pixel art character. As someone who has nothing to do with art, I am quite proud of the final results:
It took me two sittings for the first version (on the left) and almost two weeks of going back and forth between different body/head designs and colors for the final one (on the right).
The original was basic as fuck, no personality, especially for a main character. Making a character memorable under such limitations without making them too cartoony with body proportions or extreme features was VERY hard for me. Eventually, I found out that imagining the character in a higher resolution and then bringing it down to 64x64 gave me a good direction. Adding one characteristic visual feature is also important (in this case I went with the fluffy hair).
Even though I am very happy with the end product, I am not sure if I can keep up this quality for the rest of the assets in the game. It will take me ages to get something done. Animating this will be a pain in the ass.
Right now the only flaw I see is the outline, since I still don't know how to do it properly. Removing the black outline made a huge improvement visually, but the sprite will probably not stand out and will blend too much in the background.
I am open to suggestions for improvements, since I want to get the main character right.
Holy crap at the improvement! Congratulations, it's night and day. I wish I could make sprite art look that good.
Regarding outlines, check out lessons on "selective outline" or "selout" if you haven't. Derek Yu's pixel art tutorial is, as always, fantastic about it. I've taken the liberty of adding a selective outline to the (actually relatively few) parts of your sprite that needed it, i.e. the light-colored parts that didn't have an outline already. Comparison on both black and white backgrounds:
The modified sprite on its own and 1x / transparent background, in case it's helpful:
Hey! Thank you for all the kind words about my video, liking and subscribing! I really appreciate it! Here's one of Unity's own evangelists explaining root motion on a 2d project. It looks like it does apply to 2d animations too!
Thanks a lot, I can't wait to play with it; I can probably simplify things greatly by using it. The way I do it right now is pretty awkward, by having the animation end up at the "neutral" or (0, 0) position, but start at a different position, and "teleporting" the character before playing it to compensate for that offset.
Thanks so much! Hope you like it!
Hahaha that does sound a bit make-shifty, but with game dev, I'm always under the impression: "if it works... it works!"
Hey, thanks ! I'm pretty happy with launch so far - people seem to really like it luckily. I have pretty low expectations for sales (anywhere close to 1000 copies in the first year would be nice), but I think with a bit of luck I should be able to hit it.
I was terrified that everyone would hate the game, and it'd only sell like 5 copies. So I'm really relieved lol. I still have a lot of work to do though, I just gotta keep promoting when/where I can and gradually trickle in sales. (While also hopefully starting on game 2 :p)
It's a really nice feeling to be finished. Childhood dream and all that
Out of curiosity, I checked out the reviews, and the one single negative review is... something.
It seems they have a problem with the subject matter more than the game itself, ironically because it probably hits too close to home for them, which I can understand, but is kind of absurd to leave a negative review for.
Speaking of reviews, regarding visibility, it seems that the fastest way to go viral and get good sales is to search for influencers / youtubers that review games similar to your own, and send them keys. There's also several sites that both devs and verified youtubers can register for, to let the later request keys, so that the devs know the keys are going to them rather than resellers.
Out of curiosity, I checked out the reviews, and the one single negative review is... something.
It seems they have a problem with the subject matter more than the game itself, ironically because it probably hits too close to home for them, which I can understand, but is kind of absurd to leave a negative review for.
LOL yeah I saw that. To be fair to that person though, after I wrote a response they did kind of apologise and say they wanted to give the game another/fairer shot. Hopefully they like it more the second time around :P
I signed up to a website called "keymailer.co" a few weeks ago, but they never got back to me or approved my account :(
Do you know of any other good ones?
Thanks dude. That walk looks good. It took me ages to finally learn how to animate a proper walk cycle and put it in unity.
Some new FUN screens from my soon to release game, Under the Rainbow.
Under the Rainbow - Prologue on Steam
Under the Rainbow Prologue is a short adventure game telling the story of the relationship between two best friends, Kara and Dahlia. Play as Kara Evans in a melancholy tale detailing the interactions and horrible events leading up to her best friends death.
There was a thread on reddit a couple years ago comparing them, and apparently Woovit was the best one out there:
Reddit - Dive into anything
www.reddit.com
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Hey, guys, I know will sound wild, but there is any know technique for procedural voice acting? I was interested on looking into that for a game with procedural narrative and procedural characters.
I can't go into too much detail, but there are some solutions available and they're not very good.
Put it this way, the best consumer-facing voice synthesis implementation that currently exists is Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, and they're still very obviously robots.
I'm from the Ever Forward team, we are approaching to finish the game this summer.
Last week, we released the finished first part of the game to Steam, it's a demo, but we name it as a prologue.
Here is the link: Ever Forward Prologue page, it's free.
We used Unity engine to build it, this demo has incomplete arts, music, etc, and bugs may come out without clue.
But we are working on it, and we want to know as much feedback as possible.
So if you find any bugs, or you have any suggestions, please let us know, we'd like to hear your feedback.
If it's convenient for you, you can contact us on Our Twitter Page.
Below there are some screenshots:
GIFs:
Last week, we released the finished first part of the game to Steam, it's a demo, but we name it as a prologue.
Here is the link: Ever Forward Prologue page, it's free.
We used Unity engine to build it, this demo has incomplete arts, music, etc, and bugs may come out without clue.
But we are working on it, and we want to know as much feedback as possible.
So if you find any bugs, or you have any suggestions, please let us know, we'd like to hear your feedback.
If it's convenient for you, you can contact us on Our Twitter Page.
Below there are some screenshots:
GIFs:
Glad to see these threads are still around! Loving everyone's work, keep going I'm rooting for you all.
I made Demi have more of a child appearance (bigger eyes & head), added bouncy ears, and working on the classic Zelda platforming. I wanted to make something that felt familiar and then add my own twist to it. Once we get closer to a demo release I'll be sure to post about it~
I made Demi have more of a child appearance (bigger eyes & head), added bouncy ears, and working on the classic Zelda platforming. I wanted to make something that felt familiar and then add my own twist to it. Once we get closer to a demo release I'll be sure to post about it~
yxywc001 This looks really neat! I shall try to check it out soon! :)
Incarne Loving the bounciness, really gives a lot of life to the character as they're trotting about!
Speaking of bounciness, that's what I've been working on the past couple of mornings! Decided to add some mildly intractable set-dressing and I quite like how it turned out! (It also highlighted several bugs relating to animation when interacting with other moving objects so that was good...)
Incarne Loving the bounciness, really gives a lot of life to the character as they're trotting about!
Speaking of bounciness, that's what I've been working on the past couple of mornings! Decided to add some mildly intractable set-dressing and I quite like how it turned out! (It also highlighted several bugs relating to animation when interacting with other moving objects so that was good...)
Incarne Loving the bounciness, really gives a lot of life to the character as they're trotting about!
Speaking of bounciness, that's what I've been working on the past couple of mornings! Decided to add some mildly intractable set-dressing and I quite like how it turned out! (It also highlighted several bugs relating to animation when interacting with other moving objects so that was good...)
Thanks bud! I was trying to achieve a similar effect to the bounciness in the Jak and Daxter games. Your art is looking amazing also holy crap! That interaction bounce is really smooth and the character is a cute. Nice work~
Thanks so much! (The bounce is just default Box2D spring settings, haha!)
You definitely got that vibe going on! Love those styles of games, can't wait to see more!
Does anyone know about royalty free music. I found this site epidemicsound that says music is royalty free and can be used in indie games with a subscription.
Does anyone know how stuff like that works?
Does anyone know how stuff like that works?
I used royalty free music for my own game. There's a ton of different licenses out there regarding what you can do and if / how you need to attribute the original creator, so you'll have to look up the specific license. The most permisive one is Creative Commons 0 (AKA CC0, or public domain) that allows you to use it in any way you want, no strings attached or attribution needed, but since EpidemicSound uses a subscription it must obviously use a different license.
I'm assuming your primary question (or at least, the one I would have) is "what happens to my game after my subscription expires". I have searched their site for an answer but haven't found one. The closest thing to an answer comes from this:
Artlist vs Epidemic Sound. The definitive Comparison!
You don't decide between Artlist and Epidemic Sound? In this guide, you will find what you need to know about which music service is the best
But frankly, it could be interpreted either way (what constitutes "using"? Am I "using" it only when I release the game? Or am I still "using" it for as long as the game is on sale?).
I think in this case you'll probably have to contact them and ask them directly to make sure. Either way, be sure to post the answer so that other people that may be interested can know too.
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